whole question of the so-called “Divine Characters,” which Motowori, the most patriotic as well as the most learned of the Japanese literati, dismisses in a note to the Prolegomena of his “Exposition of the Records of Ancient Matters” with the remark that they “are a late forgery over which no words need be wasted.” But as this mare’s nest has been imported into the discussion of the Early Japanese social state, and as the point is one on which the absolute silence of the early traditions bears such clear testimony, it was impossible to pass it by without some brief allusion.
V.
RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE EARLY JAPANESE, BEGINNINGS
OF THE JAPANESE NATION, AND CREDIBILITY OF THE
NATIONAL RECORDS.
The religious beliefs of the modern upholders of Shintō[1] may be ascertained without much difficulty by a perusal of the works of the leaders of the movement which has endeavoured during the last century and a half to destroy the influence of Buddhism and of the Chinese philosophy, and which has latterly succeeded to some extent in supplanting those two foreign systems. But in Japan, as elsewhere, it has been impossible for men really to turn back a thousand years in religious thought and act; and when we try to discover the primitive opinions that were entertained by the Japanese people prior to the introduction of the Chinese culture, we are met by difficulties that at first seem insuperable. The documents are scanty, and the modern commentaries untrustworthy, for they are all written under the influence of a preconceived opinion. Moreover, the problem is apparently complicated by a mixture of races and mythologies, and by a filtering in of Chinese ideas previous to the compilation of documents of any sort, though these are considerations which have hitherto scarcely been taken into account by foreigners, and are designedly neglected and obscured by such narrowly patriotic native writers as Motowori and Hirata.
In the political field the difficulties are not less, but rather greater;
- ↑ The Chinese characters used to write this word are 神道, which signify the “Way of the Gods.” The term was adopted in order to distinguish the old native beliefs from Buddhism and Confucianism.
